I use the term barbarism in contradistinction to civilization, and
very respectfully refer to authorities of repute in justification of
this use of the word, both to designate the quality of the _thing_,
and the precise locality of its fittest application; for although
Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians and Greeks applied the term
_barbari_ to all who spoke a language different from their own; and
even the Hindoos used almost the same word to express the quality
indicated, differing only by the accidental dissimilarity of the
Sanskrit orthography, which makes it _varvvarah_ or _varvvaras_, we
have the authority of Professor Wilson, who says it means "an outcast,
and in another sense, woolly or curly haired, as the hair of the
African." And for authorities showing the unity of the Negro races,
dialects, and languages, in Western, Southern, and Central Africa, I
refer to the writings of Progart, Ritter, Oldendorf, Marsden,
Bruseiotti, Harves, Grandpre, Vater, Salt, Ludolf, and Oldfield; who,
from other motives than those which have prompted the partial accounts
of more recent travelers and writers on the subject, have shown
conclusively, that the degrees of barbarism existing in the tribes
inhabiting the Western and Southern coasts of Africa, and the
interior, are, in fact, mere modifications of that same barbarism,
produced by local causes, and mitigated only by the force of nature
from without, rather than by any inherent quality belonging to any
portion of the Negro race. I speak of language as the connecting chain
which links together the various African tribes, showing, if not their
identity, their immediate connection, and holding to the account of
barbarism those exceptions to the rule of barbarism which suggest the
pretext for breaking down the barriers which divide barbarism from
civilization, and form the basis of all the false philanthropy and
efforts of political emancipation which are the curse of the age and
country in which we live.
According to Pritchard, and others familiar with the subject, the
slaves exported from Congo, which was long the principal resort of the
Portuguese traders in black men, have always been regarded by
slave-dealers and planters as genuine Negroes. If the physical traits
of the Mapoota tribe, who will, as I suppose, be admitted to be
undoubtedly of the Kafir race, so fairly represent the Negro
character, it will be less difficult to admit that the natives of
Mozambique and Congo belong to the same stock. All the inhabitants of
the great empire of Congo speak one language, though it is divided
into a number of dialects, including the dialect of Loango in the
_north_, that of Congo in the south, and _Banda_, or idiom of
Cassanga, in the interior, forming, collectively, one nearly allied
family of languages, or, in fact, one language.